We find that mutual fund investors are more likely to both purchase and redeem funds with high idiosyncratic volatility (IV). Investors' tendency to purchase high IV funds is largely driven by high IV funds having more extreme returns, which increases the salience of the fund. Including flexible...

To many people, the terror of falling share prices is often significant, often more so than the pleasure of gains. Accordingly, investors often want to minimize downside volatility as a part of their portfolio planning. Investors already have several tools to measure downside volatility,...

We find that aggregate net equity fund flows are strongly negatively correlated with changes in expected future stock market volatility as measured by the VIX. Implying that investor purchase decisions are primarily driven by returns and sale decisions by risk perceptions, we further find that...

The low volatility factor in conjunction with the style factors Quality, Value and Momentum, has empirically proven to be able to moderate market risks and improve a portfolio’s overall risk-return profile. By integrating ESG into such a factor portfolio, future risks may be mitigated. We...

We test the performance of two ESG score-driven quantitative signals on a large, multi-national crosssection of European stock returns. In particular, we ask whether in the cross-section, the cost of equity capital is more strongly affected by the (upward) “slope” (identified as momentum...

I analyze cash flow characteristics of listed infrastructure investment companies and funds and compare this unique infrastructure sample with a non-infrastructure reference group. I confirm that infrastructure investment provide more stable cash flows than non-infrastructure investments....

I examine the market, volatility and joint timing performance of US equity funds (locals) versus UK equity funds (foreigners) invested in the US equity market. I use daily mutual fund returns and hypothesise that foreign fund managers are more specialised in timing and thus better interpret the...

Research that has led to what is known as the “low volatility anomaly” in cross-sectional stocks from a similar universe indicates that volatility is not compensated with a “volatility” premium. We find evidence of a risk premium, but it depends on the definition or measure of risk....

We use unique institutional securities holdings data to examine the trading behaviour of delegated institutional capital and its impact on bond risk premia. We show that institutional fund managers trade strongly procyclically: they actively move into higher yielding, longer duration and lower...

While it is established that idiosyncratic volatility has a negative impact on the cross-section of future stock returns, the relationship between idiosyncratic volatility and future hedge fund returns is largely unexplored. We document that hedge funds with high idiosyncratic volatility...